


You'll feel better when you Wake Up

by hannahwrites



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, The Death Cure Spoilers, The Death Cure was my Death, send help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 01:03:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13939245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahwrites/pseuds/hannahwrites
Summary: “So whatd’ya say? Cure, Minho, Safe Haven, sound good to you?”“I might still die, you know?” Newt argued.“Yeah, but you might also not, you know that?”- - - - - - - - -Set during TDC (movie) and based on that post going around about "What if Newt wrote The Letter before they went looking for Minho?"(Title taken from Wake Up by EDEN)





	You'll feel better when you Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> hello I've watched Death Cure too many times and spent the time in between watching video edits n stuff so I thought I'd write this.  
> Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> (I also highly recommend a playlist called 2 5 0 on spotify, I found it last week and listened to it on a loop during the writing of this)

„Hi, I was looking for you.”

Thomas hesitated for a second as his friend spun around and quickly scrambled whatever was on the desk behind him together, seemingly making his biggest effort to hide it from him.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine”, Newt replied hurriedly, and Thomas couldn’t tell whether it was just him or Newt really did sound somewhat off.

“Ya need anything?”

“Huh?”

“You said you were looking for me….?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Don’t think I’ve seen you have any food today and Fry just made some so, like, I was just checking up on you to see if you wanted to join?”

“M good, thanks though, Tommy.” Newt answered, giving half a smile.

“What are you doing in here anyways?” Thomas wondered out loud, pointing at the desk behind Newt.

“Nothing, I just, uhm, I was … checking maps and stuff. Wanna be prepared.”

“Let me have a look, four eyes see more than two and all that”, Thomas offered, but Newt just frantically shook his head.

As Thomas took a step towards him, Newt took a defensive step back, arms crossed and covering most of the desk behind him with his body. Thomas raised a questioning eyebrow at his friend, but quickly decided not to doubt him and blame it on the stress of the past week. Taking another small step towards Newt, Thomas placed a careful hand on his forearm.

“You sure you good?” Newt gave a short nod, then tilted his head towards the door. “I’m fine. You go join the others, you must be hungry.”

Thomas squeezed Newt’s arm lightly where he still held on to it and then turned around to leave the room, missing how his friend flinched and rubbed his forearm right where he had touched him.

On his way towards the part of their current base where Frypan had decided the kitchen would be, Thomas couldn’t stop his thoughts from running. He was well aware that Newt had not been “checking maps”, and he was almost certain that he wasn’t fine, but he couldn’t put his finger on what was really wrong. Sure, they were all upset that they didn’t manage to get a hold of Minho, hell, he himself barely slept all week thinking about ways to find and rescue their friend. But what was going on with Newt seemed to be bigger than Minho, bigger than their whole situation.

Back in the Maze, he and Newt had this kind of silent arrangement where when one of them suspected that the other wasn’t as rosy as they pretended to be in front of the others, they would meet in the Council Hall at night, just leaning onto each other in silence. They never talked about it and nobody else ever found out, but to Thomas, having someone who he knew cared enough about him to miss out on a whole night’s sleep meant more than he could ever express in words anyways. He wasn’t sure if he could’ve stayed sane in the Maze without Newt, his silent shoulder to cry on, and he was about 75% certain the other boy felt the same.

Suddenly ripped out of his train of nostalgic thoughts, Thomas spun around and quickened his pace, walking back to the map room where he left Newt. They stopped being each other’s comfort shortly after they entered the Scorch, Newt distancing himself more and more, not only from Thomas but all the others as well. And frankly, Thomas was done with it. He cared for Newt a whole damn lot and he wouldn’t let his friend withdraw from all of them when there was no sensible reason to.

Basically kicking the door in with his newfound resolution, Thomas strode towards Newt, barely recognising his confused face. He grabbed his friend by the collar of his jacket, ignoring how he tried to wriggle out of Thomas’ grasp.

“Tommy, what-“

“Okay it’s enough, Newt. I’ve had enough” Thomas stated almost harshly.

“What are you talking ab-“

“No, I’m serious. You can’t keep pulling away, or not eating, or hiding from all of us and you can’t keep all your emotions to yourself and pretend you’re super fine and dandy and wonderful and you can’t shut me out, because I am done. I’m not having it anymore.”

Thomas took a deep breath after rattling down the whole speech that had somehow been building up inside him only to catch a glimpse of Newt’s face. His eyes were wide and his mouth had dropped into a slight O.

Thomas gave him a second to react, catching his own breath in the meantime. He loosened his grip from Newt’s jacket, his knuckles having gone white from holding on so tightly, when he caught a glimpse of the paper Newt had been working on.

_Dear Thomas,_

_~~I am~~  _ _This is the first letter I can remember writing. Obviously, I don’t know if I wrote any before the maze,_

For a reason he wasn’t entirely sure of, Thomas’ heart froze reading those lines. Newt, in the meantime, had recovered from his passionate speech and was about to say something, when he followed Thomas’ gaze and noticed the uncovered letter.

“Tommy.” He said determinedly, forcing the other to draw his eyes from the paper.

“What is that supposed to be?” Thomas asked, his tone cold as his entire body felt.

“It doesn’t matter. Focus.”

“I am fucking focussing and I want- I need to know what this is, Newt.” Thomas almost hissed.

Newt put his hands on Thomas’ chest, gently trying to push him back, back to where the table would be out of his sight, but Thomas was faster. Wrapping one arm around Newt, he snatched the paper and took a few fast steps back, leaving his friend trying to regain balance and thus buying himself precious seconds to read on.

_but even if it’s not my first, it’s likely to be my last. ~~I’m not~~ I want you to know that I’m not scared. Well, not of dying _

Thomas dropped the letter below his face where he had been holding it.

“You’re not serious” he whispered.

“Tommy…” Newt answered softly, though not trying to deny what he had written or ease Thomas’ mind.

“No, Newt, don’t _Tommy_ me. Please. What is this for?”

With a resigned sigh Newt shook his head. “You know”

“I don’t. Because if this is about you not being immune then I don’t want to hear about it. We’re looking for a cure and we’ll have found it before you’re infected and-“

At that Newt gave a cold laugh that sounded somewhat between a snort and a sob and Thomas’ blood ran cold.

Newt snorted again. “You cannot be that bloody stupid, Thomas. Don’t tell me you really think we could live out here among all those cranks and go to all those places and fucking Brenda gets fucking bitten, but poor precious little Newt stays unharmed, you do not seriously believe that, do you? Cos if you do I really, really overestimated you.” He followed up with another cold laugh.

Thomas just stood and stared. He felt as if his feet were glued to the same ground that just opened up beneath him to eat him alive. Through all of it – the Maze, the Scorch, WCKD, their desperate search for Minho – it had been him and Newt. No matter who came or left, no matter what happened, Newt had been there. When they found out he wasn’t immune Thomas somehow managed to banish it from his mind, to tell himself that until the time would come where he’d have no other choice but to think about it, they’d have already found a cure, he couldn’t let himself think about it in fear he’d completely shut down if he did. And now the day was here and he had nothing. No words. No cure. _No cure._

Feeling as if he might collapse, as if the universe had just played the dirtiest of all tricks on him, dirtier than taking him from his family, wiping his memories, putting him in the Maze, the Scorch, as if there was nothing to lose that he hadn’t already lost, Thomas stumbled towards Newt. Grabbing him by the jacket, he pulled the other towards him, into his arms, holding as tight as he could, with a desperate strength that he didn’t know he had, as if holding Newt now meant nobody, nothing else could ever get a hold of him.

And without knowing what was happening to him, without willing them to do so, the words tumbled out of his mouth “I love you I love you oh god I love you” and Thomas didn’t know if it was him talking, he didn’t know if he was sobbing into Newt’s jacket or ruining it by clutching it too tightly, but he was one hundred percent certain the words were the truth, as truthful as anything he had ever experienced in his life. There was nothing he had ever been certain of, not that he could remember, having been wiped of his memories and all, and the one thing he was ever certain of betrayed him as cruelly as she did, but he was certain of this.

He pulled back and took a deep breath, his face falling into a curious grimace. “I love you” he stated again, with a confused face as if he had just realised what he said, as if he had been speaking in a foreign language before and only now understood the true meaning of his words, and the truth behind them.

“Tommy” Newt said softly, shaking Thomas, who was trembling, a little as if he was in some kind of trance. “I love you, too. You’re my best friend. Of course I love you”

Thomas’ face scrunched up a little. “No, I…like…I _love_ you. I _like like_ love you. I _I don’t even want to imagine a second of my life without you, because even imagining it feels so weird and unreal and unbearable_ love you.”

Upon seeing Newt’s unreadable and somewhat conflicted expression, he added “And I don’t know where this is coming from and trust me I am so confused and I don’t know what anything in my life is anymore at this point, but all I am certain of is you and I don’t care if you love me back, I don’t care if this is gonna lead anywhere, all I know is that we are going to find you a cure and then we are going to find Minho and then we’re going to the safe haven and I don’t care about anything that happens in between that as long as I know that you and Minho and everyone else are gonna be there and are gonna be okay, as long as I know that I’ll be fine. And I’ll do everything to make that happen, I’m serious.”

During his speech Thomas had stepped closer and closer into Newt’s personal space, their noses almost touching at this point. Newt, obviously at a loss for words, just chuckled slightly and whispered “Now that was something, Tommy. Didn’t know you had that in you.”

“Neither did I”, Thomas confessed, smiling sheepishly.

“So whatd’ya say? Cure, Minho, Safe Haven, sound good to you?”

“I might still die, you know?” Newt argued, nudging his shoulder against Thomas’, bringing a little distance between them.

“Yeah, but you might also not, you know that?” Thomas shot back with a slight smile.

“Tommy, if I do though”, Newt took a shaky breath, trying to mask it by shooting Thomas a smile, “promise me something?”

“I would if I knew you weren’t the person to shamelessly abuse promises” Thomas tried to lighten the mood with a joke, referring to their Glade days.

“I’m serious, Thomas” Newt said, still the hint of a smile in his voice.

Thomas tilted his head in question, urging Newt to utter his demand.

Taking another shaky breath, Newt said quietly “I want you to kill me.”

Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and a pained expression flooded his face. “If I get really bad, I want you to end it, before I lose myself. I want to die as me, as the person I am right now and if I have to go that way I want you to be the last thing I see. Not some distorted, cranky memory. Not some brainless zombies eating my own brainless zombie self. Can you do that for me, Tommy? Please?”

And opening his eyes, and looking into Newt’s, sincerely begging him to do him that one last favour, what could Thomas do but agree? Pressing his forehead to Newt’s, inhaling his familiar smell and exhaling the pain, the agony he felt at the request, Thomas felt a tear slip down his cheeks.

Crying. Something he promised himself he wouldn’t let happen ever again after the Glade, after Chuck, something Newt knew all too well from their nights in the Council Hall and something he knew could end up with Thomas shaking and sobbing in his arms, crying until he passed out.

Not knowing what else to do, overcome with a strange urge and a feeling that this was the right thing, the only right thing to do in a moment like this, Newt closed the distance between himself and Thomas and pressed their lips together.

He could taste salt and tears and he felt Thomas’ entire desperation leap at him, felt how it was to carry the weight of the world and soon the life of a friend on your shoulders. Thomas didn’t move an inch, just stayed there as if moving meant that Newt would vanish into thin air. Their lips stayed pressed together in a kiss full of agony and pain, full of the memories they shared, the good, the bad, full of unspoken wishes and unfulfilled dreams, full of a life robbed.

Neither of them dared to move until Thomas pulled away ever so slightly, separating their lips just enough to catch a breath. He inhaled and as he exhaled, Newt felt Thomas’ lips move against his in a whispered

“Yes. I promise.”


End file.
